Tlazolteotl - Aztec Goddess

Tlazolteotl - Aztec Goddess

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Dec 27 09 9:45 PM

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Tlazolteotl

(Whose name can be variously translated as "Earth Goddess", "Filth
Goddess" or "Dirt Goddess") is the Aztec and Toltec Goddess of Guilty Pleasures, who both inspires and forgives carnal acts. She is a Love and
Earth goddess who is said to remove sins from Her worshippers by absorbing them into Herself. The punishment for adultery under harsh Aztec law was death; but
if the offender confessed to Tlazolteotl he or she was absolved and the law would not touch them. However, a person was only allowed one confession per
lifetime, so people would leave it as long as they could!

Tlazolteotl has aspects both of Earth-Goddess and Moon-Goddess, and is one of the Guardians of the Tree of the
West, as well as a Goddess of Childbirth. She is the mother of Cinteotl, the Corn God, and Xochiquetzal, the Goddess of Love. Tlazolteotl is also known as the
Goddess of Witches, and is said to have four aspects who were depicted riding broomsticks and wearing pointed hats, just like the stereotypical European
depiction of witches, except that they were naked. In the Codex Fejervary-Meyer Tlazolteotl is shown nude (except for Her jewelry) on a red broomstick
holding a snake. These four aspects of Tlazolteotl were considered four sisters, from the eldest Tiacapan, through Teicu and Tlaco, to Xocutzin, the youngest.
They were said to tempt people facing decisions towards evil and vice.

The hermit Jappan, after abandoning his family, made his home in the desert and committed himself to devotion to
the Gods. Tlazolteotl, rather insulted by his renunciation of the world, went to him to "console" him. He fell for it and was easily seduced by Her.
When the Gods found out, They cut off his head and changed him into a scorpion.

Tlazolteotl is considered one of the Nine Figures of the Creation of the World, which also include Chalchiuhtlicue
and Her husband Tlaloc, as well as being one of the thirteen Companions of the Day. Perhaps because of this, Tlazolteotl is sometimes called "the Mother
of the Gods".

Alternate spelling: Tlazolteutl, Tlacolteutl.

Other aspects: Tlaelcuani, the Eater of Filth; Teteoinnan, "Mother of the Gods", patroness of midwives
and healers; and Toci, "Our Grandmother", who represents nature's healing powers.

The Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl was also able to bring about epilepsy - or even spare people from it. By penetrating human beings, she could
send them into convulsions. On the Tapisserie reproduced here, the goddess herself is depicted as a personified epileptic incident: foam and blood-spewing
mouth, watering eyes in a red face, twisted and 'clenched' feet.

Among the female deities, those of earth, fertility, sexuality and destruction are the most important. There are Mother of Earth or "Mother of Gods"
(Teteoinnan) deities, such as the old (Huaxtecan) earth deity Tlazolteotl ("Eater of Filth"), associated with procreative powers
and lust, and important in rituals for repenting adultery, fornication etc., Xochiquetzal, representing love and desire, and associated with flowers
and festivals, or Coatlique (Huitzilopochtli's mother), with devouring, destructive aspects. Tlazolteotl can also be depicted with a
flayed human skin (like Xipe Totec), and her ixiptlatli was ritually flayed in the 'thanksgiving' festival of autumn, where she -
after meeting with the sun - gave birth to the corn god in a ritual drama.

Tlazolteotl

Tlazolteotl, "Filth Goddess", a mother-earth goddess.
Tlazolteotl is the goddess of the human fertility and of sexuality. Tlazolteotl is associated with the moon.

As Tlaelcuani, "the Eater of Filth" she is the goddess of the Ritual Cleansing. She is the mother of Centeotl, a maize god. In her incarnation as Teteoinnan, Mother of the Gods, she is protector of the midwives, doctor women
and of those who tell fortune.

In the tonalpohualli, Tlazoteotl is the protector of the 14th day,Ocelotl(jaguar), and the 13th trecena,Ollin(movement). She is Lord of the Day for days with number5("mahcuilli" in Nahuatl). She is the seventh Lord of the Night.

Tlazolteotl was an earth, sex, childbirth and a mother goddess. She was referred to as 'the eater of filth' because she
visited people at the end of their lives to eat the filth' (sins) they confessed to on their deathbeds.

Tlazolteotl is drawn wearing the skin of a human sacrificial victim and squatting over something. She can also be seen carrying a grass broom as
a symbol of cleaning or wearing a spindle of raw cotton on her headdress. Very often today you can find small statues of her as a woman squatting and giving
birth - her role as goddess of fertility and childbirth is overtaking her role as goddess of filth and purification.

Equivalents in Other Cultures:

The Aztecs appear to have acquired Tlazolteotl into their pantheon via the Huastec after the Aztec conquered the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Story and Origin of Tlazolteotl:

Aztecs believed that if they confessed all their sins while on their deathbeds, Tlazolteotl would come to eat this filth, thus allowing them to die while
spiritually pure and clean.

Family Tree and Relationships of Tlazolteotl:

Mother of Cinteotl
Mother of Xochiquetzal

Temples, Worship and Rituals of Tlazolteotl:

Aztec warriors were provided with prostitutes while they were in training. These prostitutes dedicated themselves to Tlazolteotl, but their services made them
unclean so the Aztecs ritually sacrificed the women and dumped their bodies in marshes. Other Aztecs would purify themselves in front of images of Tlazolteotl
by cutting themselves and offering up their blood. During the festival of Ochpanitztli, war captives would be sacrificed to her via the Tlacaliliztli arrow
sacrifice.

Spinning, Weaving, and Sex
In her name Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina, the Ixcuina is from the Huastec for "Goddess of Cotton" (Sullivan 12). Her
headdress usually includes two spindles of unspun cotton, which connect Her to weaving and to the rich cotton-growing region of the Huastec.

In Mesoamerica, woven cotton textiles were used as a medium of exchange, and women were the principle weavers, bringing money and prestige to
the household through their weaving. A spindle full of thread is also called a mazorca, the word for a full ear of corn, as they are similar in form.
The strands of cotton that hang from the spindles in Her headdress mimic the tassel on the ear of corn. The life-cycle of corn parallels the cycle of spinning,
from waxing to waning, and both parallel the human life cycle (Sullivan 28-29). Cotton had other connections to the female cycle, as the bark of
the cotton plant was used for uterine contractions and to induce menstruation (Sullivan 19).

The act of weaving also had sexual connotations, as we see in this Nahuatl riddle: "What is it that they make pregnant, that they make
big with child in the dancing place? The answer is 'The spindles,' and the dancing place is the bowl where the spindles are set" (Sullivan 14). Spinning and weaving were tied to women's lives in metaphoric and concrete ways.[6]

Tlazoteotl-Ixcuina is associated with a four-part sisterhood: First Born, Younger Sister, Middle Sister, and Youngest Sister, each of which
is named Tlazolteotl. This quadripartite representation may have lunar aspects, as the four phases of the moon (Baéz-Jorge
100). These sisters were the goddesses of carnality or lust, and the cleric Sahagún writes that "their names signified that all women have an
aptitude for carnal acts" (36). I interpret this as an illustration of the female capacity, throughout her life, to
embody the sacred cycle of generation, death, and regeneration. And certainly lust, the drive for connection and regeneration, is seated deeply in the female
purview, and here most obviously connected to lunar cycles.

Purification and Pardoning
As Tlazolteotl-Tlaelquani, she is the "Eater of Excrement", the pardoner of sins. Sahagún writes that the old or terminally ill would seek Her
because this absolution could only be given once in a lifetime. Her clergy would not only hear confessions and grant absolution but would also find those,
especially adulterers, who did not confess and bring them to public punishment. Tlazolteotl was invoked at a new birth, to cleanse a baby of her parents'
transgressions.

From the Tonalamatl de los Pochtecas comes a lovely image of Tlazolteotl. She is nude, wearing an elaborate headdress, and riding a broom.
Her headdress includes the usual spools of unspun cotton, as well as a shell, showing her ties with the lunar cycles. She is drawn with a wrinkled paunch,
symbolic of a woman who has given birth. She holds a red snake, symbol of the fertility of menstrual flow (Baéz-Jorge
100) The broom is a reference to the Aztec purification festival of Ochpaniztli, which honored the female deities, including Tlazolteotl.

As Tlazolteotl-Tlaelquani, She was the Goddess of the black, fertile earth, the rotting earth, the fecund earth that gains its energy from
death, and in turn feeds life. Associated with purification, expiation, and regeneration, She turns all garbage, physical and meta-physical, into rich
life.

Embodying the
cycle
Tlazolteotl, Goddess of Cotton, Goddess of Filth, Eater of Excrement. She is the regenerative power of the earth, the midwife, and the pardoner. One of the
most provocative renditions of Tlazolteotl is from the Codex Borbonicus. She squats in the birth-giving position, wearing the conical Huastec hat with tassels,
similar to the tassels on new corn. She wears black and red, decorated with crescent moons which, to my eye, mimic the shape of a vulva.

This drawing shows Tlazolteotl conceiving a child (see the child coming from above and to the right, footprints leading to the place of
conception, the head), and She births a child who wears a headdress, earrings, and necklace just like her mother. While embodying this cycle of life,
Tlazolteotl wears the flayed skin of the sacrificial victim (the dimpled skin always signifies this, but it is very obvious here with the extra hands hanging
below), a symbol of death feeding life.

Tlazoteotl is associated with the trecena beginning with Ce Ollin, 1 Movement. The glyph for ollin shows the combining of
two elements to form movement, symbolizing the active principle. The symbol for ollin is here as well in the two snakes to the right - one fleshed and
the other discarnate. The two, intertwined, convey in vivid detail the interdependence of death and life.

In this image, She is the cycle of death and life, of death feeding life, of life cycling to death. The twinned snakes encapsulate
ollin, the movement of life. Tlazolteotl is the provoker and the pardoner, the active female principle in the continual cycle of death and
life.

She is easily identified, usually with black around her mouth, sometimes with a conical hat or riding a broom, and often
squatting in a birth-giving posture. Tlazolteotl is one of the most endearing and complex goddesses of the Mesoamericans.

Her name is derived from the Nahuatl word for garbage, tlazolli, literally "old, dirty, deteriorated, worn-out
thing … which was used to connote filfth, garbage, or refuse, all of which subsumed human waste products" (Klein
21). Tlazolli could also refer to profligate behavior, related to the root for quail (zolli), a bird associated with fertility and the
earth "owing to its tendency to keep close to the ground and to its prolific breeding habits" (Sullivan 11).
Indeed Tlazolteotl both provoked and pardoned licentiousness, explaining Her moniker "The Eater of Filth."

The second part of Her name, teotl, signifies a deity, and in this generic form could refer to male or female.
However, Tlazolteotl is almost always considered female. The early Spanish clerics compared Her to the Roman Venus because of Her connections to sexuality.
Tlazoltetol not only encompasses illicit love, overindulgence, and dissolute behavior but also is the pardoner for those who engage in Her excesses.

Tlazolteotl is considered a lunar and agrarian Goddess. She is identified with the trecena of the ritual calendar
that begins with the day Ce Ollin, or First Movement. She is associated with the day sign of the jaguar. She was honored by the peoples of eastern coastal
Mexico, the Huastecs, Mixtecs, and Olmecs, as well as the Aztecs of central Mexico. She was known by various names, including Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina and
Tlazolteotl-Tlaelquani, indicative of Her many aspects.

Fertile and Generative Black
Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina originated in the rich fertile areas of the Huastec peoples in the lands bordering the Gulf of Mexico in the modern states of Hidalgo,
Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas. The Huastec region is a rich fertile area, especially known as a cotton growing region, with a long history of
trading with Central Mexico. In a statue from post-Classic Huastec, Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina wears a conical hat indigenous to this region. On page 39 of the Codex
Borgia , a ring of Cihuateteo (women who died in childbirth and were deified) dance around two figures. The Cihuateteo wear the typical red and black skirts
and huipils of Tlazolteotl, adorned with crescent moons. The shells on their skirts, as well as the typical Huastec crescent moon nose ornament, connect them
with the lunar cycles. Though the moon was considered the purview of a male deity, the cycles, the regenerative aspect, and the motion were
female.

A number of Tlazolteotl figurines were part of an offering burial in honor of the Cihuateteo. These figurines show Tlazolteotl
in Her aspect as midwife. In each hand She holds the bands used in traditional postpartum binding practice. Though more obvious on these figurines in person
than in photo, Her mouth is painted black.

In fact, Tlazolteotl's most distinctive feature is the black on Her mouth and chin. The Olmecs used bitumen, a black
viscous material, as paint for decoration on everything from pottery to the human body. Bitumen was chewed publicly only by girls and unmarried women
(McCafferty 33).

Bitumen (also called tar or asphalt) is the byproduct of decomposed organic materials. Could there possibly be a more apt
decoration for Tlazolteotl than a paint made of deep, black, decomposed material associated with the burgeoning sexuality of young women? The black around Her
mouth is linked with Her role as an "eater of sins," as the "eater of filth," but here the sin and filth are transformed into symbols of
the dark erotic genesis of life.